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Posted by Steve(JazzHunter) on 10/04/12 11:32
On 7 Nov 2005 01:07:54 -0800, "Jordan" <lundj@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>One-Shot Scot wrote:
>> "Jordan" <lundj@earthlink.net> wrote in message
>> news:1131331215.624076.259540@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>> > It's also called "Window Boxing". You'll see it on the credits to old
>> > Warner Brothers cartooons too.
>> >
>> > - Jordan
>>
>>
>> So what's the routine? Is this done only with academy ratio (1.37:1) movies,
>> or were there some oddball ratios which were in circulation in the early
>> 1930s?
The original double-sprocket 16mm format gave a picture area of
approximately 1.24:1. Many silent films only survive on Kodascope,
using that aspect. Also in the early talkie days the sound stripe cut
directly into the picture areas, reducing the width and leaving an
aspect of about 1:19 to 1. All Paramount and Fox films until 1933
used this 1.19:1 aspect, thus, properly formatted Marx Brothers films
should be windowboxed when transferred for DVD. Unfortunately, except
for a few Image releases and the laserdisc of "City Lights," this is
rarely done. (I thought it was shocking that the Warner DVD of "City
Lights" went back to a cropped 1.33:1 aspect! whereas the Fox DVD
kept the correct Windowboxing) Warner and Fox in the early sound days
used a narrower (top to bottom) image, thus preserving the 1:33
Modified Academy ratio on most sound prints, in some cases for
Vitaphone Disc-and-Reel films transferred to optical they blew up the
image and chopped off the left, thus losing information on three
sides.
All the Betty Boop precode cartoons would have benefitted from
windowboxing; as it is, since cartoons use the whole frame, major
parts of the picture at the top and bottom are chopped off in all
Betty Boop releases, for example.
The issue is not TV overscan in this case, though Postage Stamp
framing is used sometimes for Silent films where, again, they tended
to use the whole frame and information would be lost on a consumer
set.
Postage Stamp framing and Windowboxing are not the same thing, they
address different issues.
... Steve ..
>
>It's not really a ratio thing, it's a television over-scan thing. It's
>to prevent parts of the image from being cropped off by the television
>over-scan.
>
>You can see the over-scan yourself if you have a DVD player with a zoom
>feature. Zoom the picture on any DVD to 1/2 size, you will see parts of
>the picture that are normally not visible when the image is full size.
>The parts that are lost fall in the over-scan area.
>
>- Jordan
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